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The following post originally appeared on Forbes | October 19, 2015 Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy. ~Bill Gates There are many ingredients to creating a legacy: perseverance, hard work, differentiation, excellence, effectiveness, and the list goes on. And if you’ve done everything right, and the powers that be throw in a bit of luck, a legacy just might manifest, bringing with it all of the appropriate benefits. There is another side of the story, however. […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | September 21, 2015 Customer acquisition costs are, well, costs; they are expenses. And in complex sales – especially sales of intangibles, like professional services – they can be exceedingly high, and difficulty measuring them makes optimization a challenge. Add to that mix a flat, and in some areas, declining demand for services and you get an exceedingly high value placed on client loyalty and repeat business. Measurement challenges aside, positive client experiences […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | September 15, 2015 If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you. ~William Tecumseh Sherman As anyone who’s reached the top of their craft will attest, “There is pressure; and there is pressure.” While there is no doubt that industry, at the highest levels, places immense strain on those that inhabit its walls, certainly, the White House has no equal. […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | September 15, 2015 A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. ~Jeff Bezos In 2011, Nixon Peabody’s CEO and managing partner, Andrew Glincher, came to a conclusion that (no doubt) many other law firm leaders experience at some point: It has to be difficult for general counsel to differentiate between many law firms. When you take a hard […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | September 9, 2015 It is difficult to dispute the speed of BigLaw’s evolution. And while firms work tirelessly to keep up with the pace, their efforts to build identities are hindered by fuzzy, poorly articulated industry lines. As it stands, there aren’t many classifications for a firm to choose from: “Full service,” “boutique,” “regional,” “national,” etc. Without sufficiently diverse and articulated industrial definitions for a firm to affiliate with, it can be […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | September 8, 2015 As the world gets smaller and industry gets bigger, playing fields that were miles and leagues apart are closing in on each other, commingling competitors of all shapes and sizes. A major bank loses a real estate development opportunity to crowdfunding; A Wisconsin-based electrical engineering company loses a major job to India; A hospital in Cincinnati loses a potential merger partner to a Chinese healthcare system. From your local mom-and-pop […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | August 24, 2015 Starting out in 1903 with $28K in loans, Henry Ford launched Ford Motor Company on Mack Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. And though, at the time, they were producing just a few cars a day, big dreams and Henry Ford’s brilliant mind and work ethic spawned a behemoth that has grown to more than 224K employees working in 90 plants around the world, and producing $135.8B in revenue (2014). A true […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | August 11, 2015 Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a location. ~ Reid Hoffman Young, married, without savings, and with his first child on the way, Larry Sonsini made a risky move by veering from the tried-and-true path of joining a major New York law firm after graduation. And by signing on as the first associate with a young, entrepreneurial law firm in Silicon Valley – McCloskey, Wilson & Mosher – he […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | July 27, 2015 Bloomberg BNA launched their inaugural Big Law Business Summit on July 15th. With speaker’s ranging from David Leitch, Ford’s group vice president and GC, to industry icon H. Rodgin Cohen, Sullivan & Cromwell’s senior chairman, to Jennifer Daniels, CLO & Secretary of Colgate-Palmolive, the strength of the lineup waxed more centennial than inaugural. Below are six of the more important themes of the day: Globalization And Regulation David Leitch […]

The following post originally appeared on Forbes | July 20, 2015 If you want to go East, don’t go West. ~ Ramankrishna Though strikingly simple, Ramankrishna’s point is a powerful one, especially when applied to the global legal market. While the U.S. still produces the majority of the world’s legal work, the explosive growth of China’s economy, and its sheer size, make it a very real contender as the machine of globalization grinds away. It is a young legal market […]